


Term Limits

by Aerows



Category: Major Crimes (TV), The Closer
Genre: Drama & Romance, F/F, Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-17 23:08:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5888746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aerows/pseuds/Aerows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brenda Leigh Johnson learned a valuable lesson in the CIA.  You can only pretend to be someone you are not for so long.  There are term limits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Term Limits

Title:  Term Limits

Char:  Brenda/Sharon

Rating:  M (ratings will definitely go up later)

Summary: Brenda Leigh Johnson learned a valuable lesson in the CIA.  You can only pretend to be someone you are not for so long.  There are term limits.

Disclaimer:  I own nothing of the Closer, I'm just borrowing their dynamic characters to take them on a spin. 

 

Term Limits

 

Brenda Leigh Johnson woke before the alarm went off. Peering towards the blinds, she could see that it was barely sunrise, but the loud banging noise in the kitchen, followed by the shrieking din of the sink disposal penetrated her foggy brain like an icepick. Just as she rose from her pillow, scooping her hand through her mass of blonde hair in her face, the sound stopped. She blearily looked at the clock, wiping sleep out of her eyes to see it was 5:45. That was AM. Her body naturally started to careen over and fall back into the pillow because she still had 30 minutes before her usual 6:15 wake up time hit when she was jarred by a worse sound.

 

Fritz was obviously in the kitchen. He made it incredibly clear with enough banging around to make a construction crew at a rock concert sound quiet. For a blessed moment it was silent again. Remembering how she was caught off guard before, she passed a hand down her sleepy face and paused, floating between getting into the shower or laying back down.

 

A blaring, tooth rattling, fingernails on a chalkboard whine lit up their home like the smell of a skunk, the searing of sunlight too bright to see through, and a bitter taste like ashes in her mouth. It was physical pain. He was vacuuming at 5 … she tried to restrain her thoughts to not use the word she would like to use, 5 fudging 49am. Slamming her palm down on the comforter and sheets, Brenda Leigh fled to the bathroom. She couldn't stand the shrill screech of the vacuum cleaner at her best, and at 5:49 – AM – she sure as hell didn't want to hear it.

 

Stripping her sleep shirt off as she went, then plugging her ears to escape the horrid blare of the torture device that was cleaning the kitchen floor, she jumped into the shower and closed the door. At least through the cascade of hot water, buffered by the bathroom door and the sliding glass of the shower, the offending sound was blocked.

 

As the hot water cascaded down her body, Brenda Leigh Johnson realized that she was actively waiting for Fritz to leave for work. She couldn't particularly call it an epiphany that she was done living like this, considering that she had spent more nights than not in their guest bedroom. It was quickly becoming Brenda's bedroom, like the two of them were nothing more than room mates.

 

Brenda Leigh thought about all of the reasons she had for marrying Fritz. Thinking about their early days together, how he could make her laugh, and his easy-going manner made her smile for a few moments under the hot spray. Her positive mood lasted through the conditioner she worked through her hair, and rinsed it. She was nearly smiling as she shut off the water, finding peace enough to start the day in a right frame of mind.

 

She wrapped her body in a towel and vigorously dried her hair in another. Relaxed, sauntering back to the closet to dress, she turned on the radio show that she always liked to listen to in the morning. She dressed, had her make up on and poured herself a travel mug full of coffee. Even her hair looked nice today, if she said so herself. Fluffing it, she grabbed her big handbag and headed out the door, humming the tune from the radio.

 

She was halfway to the office before she remembered that her husband was angry with her, had woken her up with aggressively loud chores, and she was still in a good mood. A pang of guilt streaked through her. Shouldn't she feel guilty that she was in a good mood this morning, and he wasn't? Surely she shouldn't feel relieved that she made it out of the door without getting into another row with him about how much he hated that she put herself in danger on the job, and how he would love for them to start a family together with children.

 

Brenda Leigh Johnson could lie with the best of them. When it came to herself, though, she tried to be brutally honest, despite the fact that it usually made her wonder how short she was coming up. She was in a good mood this morning. She didn't want to quit her job, or alter the way she performed it. She didn't want children.

 

A bald, blunt fact careened through her mind and it was so staggering that she swerved on the road a little bit and nearly got run down by a pickup truck that dwarfed her tank of an unmarked squad car. Getting herself under control and taking sharp, deep breaths to counter the striking realization, she paid close attention to the road.

 

She could drive all day long on the highway. She could pass right by the Parker Building and keep going until she ran out of road or gas. One thing she couldn't outrun, though, was herself. She had learned that lesson hard in the CIA. She could be someone else for as long as she had to be to interrogate the suspect, as long as she needed to crack the case and break the suspect, but Brenda Leigh Johnson had learned that there were term limits to being somebody else.

 

She had reached hers. Wife of Fritz Howard was a ruse that was coming to a close.

 

 


	2. Wrong day, right attitude

Brenda Leigh pulled her car into the parking space designated for her, turned her car off, and didn't touch the door. She just killed the ignition and yanked the keys out. What would it mean for her as a person if she divorced for a second time? Did it mean should would live the rest of her days out alone? She wasn't exactly a spring chicken, she thought ruefully, though she still retained good enough looks to catch the eye of men young enough to be her son had she ever been inclined to bear one.

Throwing her keys from one hand to the other, a habit she had developed since elementary school, Brenda gave herself a few minutes to wallow in the fact that she couldn't keep a husband, didn't want children and that probably made her the most pathetic person in the world.

What really capped it all off with whipped cream and a cherry on top is that she didn't want the husband she had, or the children he insisted they should have. Everybody in her family, her mama, her daddy and her husband all thought they knew what she needed. Brenda Leigh did feel a shade of emptiness inside of her; she had that odd feeling that there was a hole that needed a tourniquet to keep her from either bleeding out or burning out.

Deciding that nothing would come of anything if she kept sitting in her car in the parking lot, she gathered her bag and the collection of files she had pored over the night before while the bluish glow undulated to whatever baseball game Fritz was watching. She had almost felt like an intruder in her own home turning back the covers in the guest bedroom.

Steeling her spine, she made sure that all of her junk was juggled in her arms, she slammed shut her car door. In the thunk of the car door slamming shut, a paper flew out of one of the folders. Cursing under her breath, as she bent down to chase it, a pair of sky-high heels toed the offending paper halting it from flying away. 

Brenda Leigh's eyes rolled so hard she was convinced they were somewhere cheating at pinball.  
Taking in the pointed leather of a set of heels that could only belong to one woman, with the legs she was so resplendently blessed with, Brenda felt heat rising in her cheeks. Peeping up, reaching for the paper that Sharon Raydor politely removed her shoe's sole from, she caught the pretty, infuriating, smirk of the Captain of Discontent and Disgruntled Bureaucracy.

Brenda Leigh huffed in embarrassment and annoyance. When the captain lowered her hand to help her up, Brenda Leigh was startled by the contact their hands made, allowing herself to be pulled upright by the surprisingly strong grip. Momentarily startled when she looked into merry green eyes, it was all that Brenda could do to stuff the paper into what she hoped was the right file. She could sort it out later when she wasn't being examined like a dead bug pinned to a science exhibit.

“Good Morning, Chief Johnson.” It was said smoothly, as though there was some smug mockery going on to Brenda's ears, but her day was already started with enough aggravation to let Captain Raydor destroy what little peace she had cultivated. Still, manners dictated that she had to say something. 

“I appreciate you catchin' that, it was about to abscond with my evidence.” The Deputy Chief suddenly realized that she sounded like a moron, at 7 am with papers flying around without her having control over them. She glanced at the captain's bag – an attache case. Of course her papers wouldn't fly around because she kept them in a hoity-toity briefcase. Brenda's face suddenly felt hot. Why didn't she have one of those instead of just a big purse?

Maybe she could get a purse big enough to fit all of her paperwork? For some reason, that thought cheered Brenda up. Maybe she needed a new purse. What kind of purse would Sharon Raydor carry if she didn't carry a briefcase and that tiny little thing on her shoulder that couldn't carry more than a cell phone and a wallet. Was it one of those numbers that had the little mirror inside so that you could keep your lipstick fixed all the time like Captain Raydor's was? 

So caught up in the idea of what kind of purse she was going to buy, she missed half of what Captain Raydor had said. “... the meeting is at 9:00, so that we can lay out the boundaries and logistics of shadowing Major Crimes.” Brenda felt like she had been pole axed.

Brenda cleared her throat, stalling for time. She wasn't about to show weakness. Shuffling her folders in what she hoped seemed like a competent manner, she nodded at the woman in front of her with her perfect hair and her matchy matchy suits, shoes and briefcase, before blurting out. “I look forward to it Captain.” Her mouth made the sounds and the motions, but her brain hadn't the faintest clue what was going on here.

Auto-pilot was not going to cut it today, Brenda Leigh though to herself. Maybe I've just been going with the motions for far to long as it is. A crackle of defiance sparked in her soul. It was time to be Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson, and quit trying to please everybody that wanted her stuck into a ruse that fit her like shoving a bull through a needle's eye.


	3. Blood Unity

Brenda barely made it off of the elevator on the ninth floor before her cell phone lit up like a Christmas tree, complete with a chorus. The doors opened, and there stood half her squad with their own dreary melodies heralding that death was on their way at the next place they went.  


Andy Flynn at least had the decency to gesture that he would drive, while Provenza chattered in her ear the specifics. A male model found floating in a pool with his throat cut.

The interesting element of this was that it was a home that was foreclosed upon in the great crash of 2008, the victim neither lived in or had any family associated with the property, and the pool had been drained to prevent damage to the foundation.

Brenda hmmphed a bit, as she studied the details of the situation on the ride over. There were a lot of things that seemed shifty to her in this investigation, and she let her mind percolate on them while they drove toward the crime scene. Three other cars trailed behind them, one a forensics van, like a sad parade to Alcatraz.

Andy did the driving. The car came to an abrupt halt, enough that it nearly dislodged the file in her lap. She chin snapped up, and scoffed at Andy for being such a jarring parker. She just eyed him. It was a common complaint and bickering session that they had repeatedly that he couldn't park a damn car with out nearly jolting the people inside it like they were dropped in a blender. Her papers, of course, flew out of her lap for the second time to day.

Andy wheezed an insincere apology, slamming the door to greet the officers that were assessing the situation. Brenda Leigh was gathering the papers now swirling around her ankles. Stuffing papers in a folder was bad enough, but then she thought about how much better she would look if she got one of those briefcase attache cases again, instead of just barely having enough room in her big purse for her normal items that couldn't hold case files.

Cramming that idea into a different part of her mind, when she stepped out of the car, she found it odd that her heel came down into a mess of muddy water. Scanning the suburban landscape, there didn't seem to be a reason for the mass of dirt and liquid – particularly since L.A. Had been under strict water rationing protocol. 

Walking the treacherous, newly wetted, sandy soil to the front door, Brenda caught the pale face of Andy Flynn. Lt. Provenza didn't look any less upset. It became clear what home this was. There were plaques on the wall describing honoring the service if this particular officer. There were pictures of a proud mother with a beautiful son.

The thing that stood out for Brenda Leigh Johnson, and what would probably haunt her for years was the fact that the picture was spattered with clusters of blood, big circles, little drips, gore that declared that nothing would every be the same again in this home. Nothing would ever be the same in hers, either, because she has crossed the Great Divide of making it work to ending it before it gets worse.

Brenda squelched her emotions, and did what she did best. She was going to send the animal that had done this not to the jail, but under it. Restraining the urge to vomit long enough for it to pass, Chief Johnson started barking orders. 

A smooth, deep voice issuing orders behind her nearly caught her attention, but she was far too involved in strategems and evidence collection to really allow it to register.

It was only when she caught a glimpse of a pointy toed shoe being covered with blue paper covers and a pompously stylish suit that she completed the tour of the interloper.

“Hello, Chief Johnson.” Captain Sharon Raydor stated it smoothly and calmly. Her perfect hair was in a covering like hers to prevent contamination, and she had a fat bag that seemed to bulge with equipment.

Directing her officers, Captain Raydor waved her hands and directed the small crowd of officers that filed in behind her. “Apprise me of the officer involved situation that has occurred here, step by step. I want all evidence collected, collated by rooms, individuals and biological priority.”

“Let's get to work, ladies and gentlemen.” Sharon Raydor clapped her hands.

Brenda Leigh whirled to make a decidedly sharp remark, when she caught Captain Raydor slipping in the blood in the foyer of the home. They both slip in a puddle of blood, with Brenda on top of Captain Raydor, feeling the reverberation of how hard the back of her head hit the floor.

Covered in blood that is neither of their own, Brenda mumbles “Quit teasin' me Sharon, you're a good goofball” Brenda jibes as she catches the brunette as she seems to collapse. For a few seconds, Brenda tries to determine exactly what she can say or do to make the woman come around again.

She feels a thousand yard stare of what an asshole she is, and gets moving.

She pulls the woman up and leans against her to keep her upright. She motions for a paramedic, pretending that it is her blood that is all over both of them instead of the suspects. They will both have to undergo weeks of segregation and blood tests if the tests disclose they were exposed. Brenda peers a covert look at Sharon, and Sharon is shooting her and equally assessing look.

They both know they are in this together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited this chapter three times, this is the second time posting it. I hope I got it right this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Starting a fic I've been wanting to write for a while. I have a couple on fanfic . net - one complete, one ongoing but I really wanted to write this one.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy the first chapter.


End file.
